Remembering my Mom

Wow, it’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since my Mom passed away. There were days when it felt like the year would never pass and yet it seems like only yesterday. On the anniversary day (Thursday) I thought to myself that I should do something that my Mom would have loved to do. Well, I don’t like chocolate malts so the next best thing was to ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair! My mom absolutely loved this ride – the only one she would ever ride on and she would squeal with laughter. We went last night on opening day to take Aanika to ride some of the kiddie rides and to see the animals. As most of you know, I’m a ride freak – the faster, the better and if you don’t know what the Tilt-W-Whirl is, it’s one of the oldies-but-goodies of fairs. Most anyone can ride it…yup, you guessed it, I took Aanika on it with me! I can just hear you now “She did what?!” ~ but she loved it! She started clapping her hands afterwards and when we asked her if she had fun, she looked at the operator and thanked him…she’s a true child of my own!

Other than the fun of the fair, it was a pretty quiet week. The weather is great and is cooling off to the 80’s and will probably stay that way for the remainder of autumn. Aanika and I rode our bike down to the lake yesterday to feed the ducks, turtles and even some carp. She loves the animals but she keeps pretty close to me when she knows that they’re too close. At the petting zoo last night, she was having a ball. It was called the “Unique Petting Zoo” and had a lot of animals that were her size. There were fawns, baby llamas, pigmy goats and a fuzzy cow calf…very fun. She and Daddy were even brave enough to feed some of them! I was busy defending myself and the stroller from the deer…they liked the straps of the stroller and I even got my backside nibbled on a bit! Yikes.

The picture this week is of Aanika lounging in one of her favorite chairs that our friends, the Vaughan’s, gave to us before we brought her home. The funny thing about it is that she wasn’t posing for the pictures…she just likes to sit that way…she’s sure is a funny little girl.